How To Setup a Mastering Session In The Box

Mastering is all about referencing, certainty and workflow. Although specialized mastering softwares are lovely and have many features we all would love to be able to use, one can use a regular DAW to master records without compromising sound quality.

In this video Fab Dupont shares his mastering setup in Protools (easily adaptable to any DAW you like) so you can get the most out of your existing software.

This smart three track setup will allow you to make true comparison for level and tone matching between tracks, organize your music so the record reveals itself to you without relying on long term aural memory skills.

Beyond mastering, this system is great to work on your ears and compare the sound of plugins and processes, both software and hardware.

00:00:13No! No drachmas, they don't have them
anymore, but money!
Some money, whatever your money is.
How? Good question!
Most people think they have to buy
a really expensive piece of software
to be able to do mastering,
because it must be special.

00:00:25The expensive mastering software
is lovely,
it has lots of beautiful features,
and cool stuff that other pieces
of software don't do.

00:00:31But the reality is
you don't need...

00:00:33all the expensive stuff,
you can do it in Pro Tools.

00:00:36I propose to show you how.

00:00:38What you need is a Play track,
a Process track, and a Record track.

00:00:42That's what we're gonna do first.
Play track...

00:00:45I like Stereo, make it Stereo.

00:00:48This is what my source track
is gonna be on.

00:00:51So let's write SOURCE on this,
just to know.

00:00:54Then that I'm gonna feed
into a Process track.

00:00:57I'm gonna make a new track,
Stereo, an Aux,
and then I call it PROCESS.

00:01:03That Process I'm gonna feed into
another track that I'm gonna record on.

00:01:07I'm gonna call that, say,
PRINT.

00:01:10But it has to be a track.

00:01:13PRINT.
Alright!
Now I have a Source track,
a Process Auxiliary,
and a Print track.

00:01:21And they all feed into each other.

00:01:23Lastly, I have to make sure that
my Print track
is assigned to whatever
my Monitor path is.

00:01:28If you look here,
I end up with three tracks.

00:01:31Now, here's how it works.

00:01:33What you do is get some music,
in this case,
one of the Grand Baton mixes,
drag it into Pro Tools.

00:01:40I like to park all my files
at the top of the session.

00:01:43What happens now is
this track has the mix on it.

00:01:45This track will have my plug-ins.
This track will record the result.

00:01:49Why function this way?
First, that allows you to monitor
the source track independently.

00:01:55You can send it to another output,
and have another path
on your monitoring section, and you
can hear Pre and Post. That's nice.

00:02:01Also, as you know, in Pro Tools,
plug-ins are Post-record, Pre-fader.

00:02:05Which means that if you want
to record the sound of a plug-in,
it has to be on a different track
than the track you're recording onto,
preferably a track before
that feeds it,
and if you wanna do Automation, say
a long fade, or something like that,
it has to be on an Auxiliary track,
so you can record the effect of that fade
into the track that it's assigned onto.
Right?
So now, if I press Play,
I'm gonna hear some loud Grand Baton.

00:02:35Now, feel free to insert plug-ins here.

00:02:37For example, in this case,
the Massey 2007.

00:02:41I'm gonna use that
as my final Limiter.

00:02:44If I press Play now,
I can play with the Limiter,
and hear its effect.
The audio is coming from the source,
through the Process Bus,
into the Process Aux,
through the plug-ins,
out to the Print Bus,
into the Print track,
out to my monitors.

00:03:04And now if I press Play, I can play
with the plug-in and hear it in real time.

00:03:15I'm not gonna discuss mastering
techniques right now,
I'm gonna show you a workflow setup,
because the setup is 75% of the deal.
The other 25% is your ears.

00:03:25Once you have the setup proper,
you can focus on listening,
as opposed to all the Tinkertoy stuff
you have to do
to match levels and figure out
what's going on.

00:03:32The great advantage
of this system is,
say you have a second song now,
you do the same thing!
You create a new track.

00:04:08Now I'm gonna make a group
of the first one,
and call it SONG 1.

00:04:13And then I'm gonna make a group
of this one, called SONG 2.

00:04:17In real life, I would put
the actual name of the actual song.

00:04:20Let's bring a song onto SONG 2's track.
How about "Hands Up"?
Great song.

00:04:27These are my mixes.

00:04:29Put it on the Source track of SONG 2.
There you go.

00:04:34I have my groups.

00:04:36If I select one track of the Song 1
Group, I get all of Song 1.

00:04:39One track of the Song 2 group,
I get all the Song 2,
which is very practical if I'm here and
I'm trying to match levels for example,
I can go... Song 1...

00:04:49Song 2...

00:04:54Obviously, track 2 is a lot softer
than track 1.

00:04:57What we could do is copy
that Limiter here over,
and give it some level.

00:05:11It's getting closer!
This is a very easy way to work,
because this is a great way to have
instant comparison
for level, for tone,
for compression,
without having to memorize too much.

00:05:20This system allows you to use short term
aural memory to do your mastering.

00:05:24You can also use it to have one song,
two different processings,
to compare two levels of processing,
say if you're learning plug-ins,
or you're learning your way
through the system,
same thing, you shorten
your aural memory need,
that way you can really compare
instantly.

00:05:38Say I have Song A right here, I could
make the second system Song A'.

00:05:42For example, I could get rid of
"Hands Up",
copy "Caribbean" down here,
and say:
Ok, now we know what the L2007
sounds like,
how about we learn what
the Sonnox Limiter sounds like,
compared to the L2007?
Boom!
We gave this about 7dBs,
so let's give it 7dBs.

00:06:05Now we can compare!
Completely different!
This is a great system to compare
plug-ins, strings of plug-ins, methods,
it's a great way to work on
your ears and your listening skills.

00:06:33I'm gonna close this one and open
the Grand Baton Master session,
which is the actual session
from the actual record.

00:06:39You can see here in the Arrange window,
everything in black are the mixes,
everything in red
are my printed masters.

00:06:48So if I solo the Intro...

00:07:02And then I can needle drop,
old-school term,
in between the different songs,
to make sure that my master is even.

00:07:10Was I doing a good job the other day?
Not bad!
In this particular case,
I actually used hardware.

00:07:38Let me show you how.

00:07:41Remember the source track?
That source track, instead of going to
a bus that goes to the Process track,
goes to a physical output
of my interface.

00:07:49Then it's going through my patchbay.

00:07:51That physical output is connected
to my Dangerous Liaison,
which is connected to
a whole bunch of outbard,
and the output of that Liaison is connected
back into the input of this track,
the Process track.

00:08:01So, when you want to use hardware,
if you have a piece of harware you like,
and you still want to use
this workflow,
all you have to do is send the source
track out to that piece of hardware,
and the output of the hardware
back into the Process track input.

00:08:14And you're good to go!
Another way to do this
is to use an I/O Insert, right here,
and make sure that your piece
of hardware input and output
are connected to the input and output
of the same number onto the interface.

00:08:25For example, say my Liaison was
connected to B 1-2,
if I select B 1-2 here, I'm gonna be
able to have this B hardware insert.

00:08:33For me, it's more visual to have
the Source track go out with cables,
I just like it, because I can see it.
But this works too.

00:08:40When you're done mastering your track,
you press Record...

00:08:43you hit Record, you're good to go.
Make sure you fix heads and tails,
as you're supposed to do
on every mastering job.

00:08:48And then you export the track.

00:08:50So you can select the track
you want to export,
Shift+Cmd+K...

00:08:55and select your parameters here.

00:08:57If you don't want to have to remember
a key command, this is what the workflow is.

00:09:31We all have different philosophies,
but that's the point of a different video.

00:09:34And then, choose where you want
to park them.

00:09:37I usually use a folder called Bounces,
inside the folder of the session
I'm working on.

00:09:43Press Ok. Boom!
And your master is being exported...
Ready to go!
Then, if you need to make a CD
out of it, for some reason,
you can use these bounces and import
them into Toast,
or Jam, if you still have Jam,
or Wav Burner if you're a Logic user.

00:09:57I use DSP Quattro, some people use
Peak, but it's out of business,
some people use WaveLab...

00:10:04Whatever 2-track editor you have
on your system will do,
for you to be able to sequence
and press a CD.

00:10:09If you're not gonna make a CD
out of the master,
you can make an mp3
out of Pro Tools.

00:10:13The Pro Tools built-in mp3 Engine
is very good.

00:10:16It's the same as exporting a WAV.
You select your file,
Shift+Cmd+K...
Select MP3 up here,
Interleaved/44,
choose where you want it to go.

00:10:41Put your tags in here.
If you do not fill these tags,
Pro Tools will put the name of the file
right here in Title.

00:10:47You might want to enter a new name.
Click Ok.

00:10:50It exports, and then you have an mp3!
If you're lazy, and you want
to export everything,
just select a bunch of the tracks,
Shift+Click on them.
You see them being selected right here,
on the Clip List.

00:11:06And do the same thing.
Shift+Cmd+K...

00:11:08MP3s, WAVs, Export...
Good to go.

00:11:11In summary, while it's always nice
to have all the bells and whistles
of the expensive software, it's nice
to know that you can do this kind of stuff
straight in Pro Tools,
with little compromise.

00:11:20It's a nice workflow to master
your record,
compare the sound of plug-ins,
compare chains of plug-ins,
do some sound referencing with
say, records that you like,
and of course,
train your ears.

00:11:31Et voilà!

Once logged in, you will be able to read all the transcripts jump around in the video.

Fab Dupont is a Grammy winning NYC based record producer, mixing/mastering engineer and co-founder of pureMix.net.

Fab has been playing, writing, producing and mixing music both live and in studios all over the world. He's worked in cities like Paris, Boston, Brussels, Stockholm, London and New York just to name a few.

He has his own studio called FLUX Studios in the East Village of New York City.

Fab has been nominated for Grammys 6 times, including two Latin Grammys and has received many other accolades around the world, including Victoires de la Musique, South African Music awards, Pan African Music Awards and US independent music awards.

This is great, but I would love to see how it's done in Logic. I have tried the method in Logic, but the routing seems to be a bit different in the way that it works. Great stuff though.

erickt_mx

2017 Mar 08

And not only for pro tools... this is my method for FL Studio and works Fantastic!!! also i use another track with a reference track.... important in my case when clients want an specific tone...

jin seo park

2016 Apr 19

hi fab.
I heard, Making Master fader is always best way to get the hi quality sound even thought don't use master fader.
Someone said master fader is kind of plug in , and it make possible to process high bit resolution.
is it true?

Fabulous Fab

2016 Feb 24

@kebberj: There is no audio disadvantages that I can hear at this point. You should print a mix both ways and compare for yourself. Ergonomically I still think that printing in real is better because it allow you to print in segments, do inserts and hear your work one last time before you're done with the pressure of it being the last time.

kebberj

2016 Feb 24

Hi Fab. Is there any disadvantage to using the "bounce to disk" feature in pro tools? It seems a better choice especially now that you can bounce offline in PT11 and 12.

freewind1974

2016 Jan 07

Hi Fab,
"Some of you may want to dither"... doesn't Pro Tools add dither itself when exporting to, say, 24 bit to 16 bit?
I can't find a clear explanation anywhere. Some say it adds dither, some don't.
Would be nice to have a video addressing that issue.
Keep up the fantastic work!!!

Gaetan F.

2015 Jun 06

@Robdig
That's because it's not a Pro Tools HD, so we have to put the print track in rec and then hit option+k to enable the listening.
Explanations here at 3:53 :
http://www.puremix.net/video/setting-up-for-analog-summing.html

Gaetan F.

2015 Jun 06

Same as Robdig, no sound on the print track even with the right outputs selected (I'm learning the Pro Tools 12 that I won with The Arrow Remix Contest)
Also, I see that I do not have the green buttons next to the rec buttons on my audio tracks !
I'm coming from Logic Pro
Great video thought !

Robdig

2015 Mar 13

just wondering why i can't get any audio to my print track I'm using protools10

bradleym

2014 Aug 12

Thank you for this! I'm beginning to feel the limitations of mixing in Logic ....
I learn so much every video and even more the second time.

Uauker

2014 Jul 09

Hello Fab!
In the end of the video, when you select all your masters to export, in that way pro tools won't sum everything in a stereo mix?

Fabulous Fab

2013 Dec 06

@ShineOnStudio: Int he group function of PRotools you can make the software do many things. The solos can ganged foer the whole group and also plugin parameters, automation settings. It's very powerful One of the reaons why it's hard to mix in other software when you have worked with that kind of power.

Fabulous Fab

2013 Dec 06

@jmastawoods: Sometimes 2 limiters at different speeds with less gain reduction is better than one with a lot fo gian reduction. Try it.

ShineOnStudio

2013 Dec 05

Fab, You are a master. I'm new to PureMix and I've been working in PT for years, but I always want to know more. Can you tell me how you got the solos to follow your groups so they engaged / disengaged when you clicked on the solo buttons? Thanks.

juancopro-flow

2013 Dec 01

GREAT F'ing Video! Like Always, Bless.

joshwoods

2013 Dec 01

Hey Fab, I see you are using the Flux Elixir in series with the L2007. Mind commenting on this? Thanks again for the great, informative content!

grandwizz

2013 Nov 30

Fab you have lead me to water many times
Now i,m starting to drink
Grandwizz.